i know i tend to mix fiction film elements and documentary elements in my works but that is not really coming from the theological interests about the difference of the two. rather, it comes directly from what i was told by two great american filmmakers when i was younger and working as a critic. one was robert altman, who told me I am not really a creative person. I am very bad in inventing stories, and what I see is usually more interesting than what I invent. the other was frederick wiseman, who plainly called his works fictions made out of fragments of reality, that the structure of my films is completely fictional, and if a film of mine tells some kind of story, that story may have not existed at all in the reality I filmed. for me its really more of a question of nuts and bolts of filmmaking, has far more to do in the process of what we actually do day by day, and i am not really interesting in discussing whether documentaries and fiction films are different or fundamentally the same--though the audience and the critics who see them are welcomed to discuss that! as for my personal experiences, the two have been very different, especially my behavior on location becomes completely different. i know i am a much nicer person when making a documentary, or actually the nicest sweetest guy when shooting a documentary. while when shooting worst of all an improvised fiction, i know i can be very insecure, nervous and almost unbearable to others. and that continues to the post-production. especially with a fiction, one has to re-invent completely what one has filmed during the editing, designing the soundscape and putting music. the constant trials and errors continue, because we are free from the constraints of realities, or respects to the persons we filmed. it can be very irritating before finding the right way and i myself can be self-contradictory or at least may sound so, since i often dont know yet how to verbalize what i want (and the patience of the collaborators are important). when shooting a documentary, much of these anxieties are done (and had to be over) before the camera actually rolls, or you will be invading the personal lives of the people you film with your own ego. so i have my concept set in my head beforehand and it rarely happens that i have to modify them, besides one cardinal rule of documentary shooting is that you must behave as a nice, kind, gentle and polite, accepting person who is interested and with a lot of healthy curiosity, otherwise why these people should let you film them? contrary to that, the act of shooting a fiction, whether there is a script or not, is by itself somewhat perverse (and in that regard, the greatest perversive guys ive met in my life are altman and fred).
Posted on: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 06:57:04 +0000
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